All You Know
by Claire D'Aubigne
Summary: Nero wonders about his father. AU; Uncle!Dante & Nero, who is approximately ten.


**Disclaimer: not my sandbox. **

Nero sometimes caught himself looking in the mirror, or studying his uncle during one of the naps where he'd kicked his feet up on the desk, wondering what his parents looked like. He was ten, or fairly close to it—nobody _really_ knew how old he was; his uncle had guessed and picked a birthday for him so they'd have something to mark time by. The way Nero saw it, this was probably something that all orphans went through.

He had it lucky, he supposed. There were kids his age who didn't have it all that great. On the odd occasion when his uncle took him places, or they went to go get real food, he'd see them working the street corners. He remembered the day that he'd asked Dante why they didn't just go live with _their_ uncles, and he'd explained that not all orphans had family that'd take them in, so in order to survive, they had to work somehow.

Nero was just old enough to recognize the heaviness in his uncle's voice before Dante had smiled, ruffled his hair and bought him an ice cream cone. It made him grateful that his uncle had managed to get ahold of him before it got to that point for him.

But that didn't mean that he didn't wonder. Everybody wondered.

When he finally got the courage and the opportunity to ask, he was trying to teach himself math. He'd never gone to school—his uncle had taught him to read from outdated gun magazines, and would walk Nero to the public library once a week so he could pick up his own books after that. Dante's desk was a monstrous thing and he didn't mind if Nero claimed a corner of it for himself.

He was supposed to be looking at the math book, not his uncle, but his mind wandered to his father and he caught himself staring at Dante for who knew how long. He'd asked once, and Dante had said that Nero's father had been his brother. Surely that meant they looked a little alike, right? His eyes jerked back down to his book, but not before his uncle noticed.

"Something wrong, kid?"

"No," Nero muttered, a little embarrassed at being caught. "Just thinking."

Dante chuckled, flipping another page of his magazine. "You're staring holes through my head and you want to tell me nothing's bothering you?" He shut the magazine with a snap, making Nero jump. "Actually, you've been doing it a lot lately."

Nero scratched his right arm absentmindedly, still staring at the book. "I was just thinking about my parents. What they looked like or whatever. It's not like it's a big deal."

Dante stared at him for a long time, and Nero resisted the urge to squirm. He hated asking his uncle questions about himself or his parents—not because Uncle Dante refused to answer, but because he could never tell if he was joking or not. Nero remembered one time, where he'd asked where he was born and his uncle had responded _in hell, kid._ Nero had been terrified until Dante had mussed his hair a couple of seconds later, adding _and you were so rotten, it spat you out._

With answers like that, he'd learned to stop questioning.

"Your dad and I kept in touch until we were nineteen or so," Dante replied at last. "I probably have a picture upstairs. I'll see if I can't find it for you sometime."

It was the last they talked about it for a while, because Nero didn't like the look in his uncle's eyes when he talked about his brother and he didn't like the way Dante avoided him for a couple of days, all the while acting like things were perfectly normal. Like his uncle couldn't look at him without seeing his father.

And, after all, Dante was kind of eccentric. Maybe he didn't really have the picture. Or maybe he'd forgotten.

Three weeks after he'd asked, just when he was about to really believe the "he just forgot" theory, Dante had come home and put his guns away and stared at Nero for a long time before saying, "I found some pictures, if you still want to look."

They sat at the rickety kitchen table that they almost never used, side by side, and his uncle went page-by-page through one of those ugly powder-blue photo albums that everybody had and nobody liked.

"This is your grandma," Dante explained patiently, pointing out the blonde woman that Nero recognized from the photo on his uncle's desk. "She died when we were eight. And this guy's your grandpa, who took off when we were babies."

Nero wanted to ask who his uncle meant by we, but he didn't. His grandfather was almost scary, he decided as he studied the photo. There was almost something otherworldly about him, though Nero couldn't put his finger on it. His wife, and the two babies in the next photo, didn't seem like they minded it much.

"That's your dad and me," his uncle pointed to the two identical babies in the blonde's arms. "Don't ask me which is which. I can't even tell which one is which until we're a little older."

Nero stared at the babies, then up at his uncle. "Uncle Dante, why didn't you just say you were twins?"

"Didn't really think about it. We're so different, I don't really think of us as twins."

Nero got the feeling that Dante might be lying, but decided not to push it. They were the only four people in the photo album—apparently, there were no aunts or uncles or cousins or great-grandparents. He supposed it didn't matter—he had faces now.

When they got to the end of the album, his uncle pulled the picture of his father out (he could tell them apart by himself now) and gave it to him. "You can keep that one. I know what he looks like."

Nero didn't frame it, but it did make him feel a little better.


End file.
